http://www.pfaw.org/topic-3
enMat Staver: Roy Moore's Suspension Signals A Breakdown In Law That Will Eventually Destroy The Republichttp://www.rightwingwatch.org/content/mat-staver-roy-moores-suspension-signals-breakdown-law-will-eventually-destroy-republic
<p>Mat Staver, who represented Alabama Chief Justice Roy Moore in an ethics trial that recently ended in <a href="http://www.rightwingwatch.org/content/roy-moore-suspended-defying-federal-courts-marriage-equality">his suspension from the court</a>, said yesterday that the verdict in the case shows that &ldquo;we&rsquo;re seeing the breakdown of the rule of law&rdquo; in America that will eventually lead to the &ldquo;dissolution of the entire republic.&rdquo;</p>
<p>Moore had attempted to stop federal marriage equality rulings from taking effect in his state, later making the flimsy excuse that he was merely providing judges in the state with a &ldquo;status update&rdquo; on the law, a claim that the state&rsquo;s Court of the Judiciary pointed out had been <a href="http://www.rightwingwatch.org/content/roy-moore-suspended-defying-federal-courts-marriage-equality">contradicted by Staver&rsquo;s own words</a>.</p>
<p>Staver <a href="http://www.vcyamerica.org/blog/2016/10/05/persecution-of-justice-roy-moore">was the guest</a> on VCY America&rsquo;s &ldquo;Crosstalk&rdquo; program when a listener called in to ask, &ldquo;If Judge Roy Moore can be suspended because of a frivolous complaint against him that has no merit, why doesn&rsquo;t Liberty Counsel file frivolous complaints against all the judges on the Supreme Court and have the Supreme Court wiped out, and the legislature will obviously have to do something about it.&rdquo;</p>
<p>Staver, the founder and chairman of Liberty Counsel, responded that that strategy would never work &ldquo;because the deck is stacked&rdquo; against groups like his and the Southern Poverty Law Center, which filed an ethics complaint against Moore, would &ldquo;throw the rules out&rdquo; to go after him.</p>
<p>&ldquo;So what happens here is when the rule of law is thrown out and when people don&rsquo;t abide by the rule of law and they make it up as they go, then the outcome is predetermined,&rdquo; he said. &ldquo;That is the problem that ultimately breaks down the entire freedom and democracy that we have, in terms of our representative form of government, I should say. It breaks down the whole system.&rdquo;</p>
<p>&ldquo;In fact,&rdquo; he continued, &ldquo;Thomas Jefferson said this: &lsquo;The seeds of dissolution lies in the judiciary.&rsquo; What does he mean by that? He means that if the judges, if the courts, don&rsquo;t restrain themselves and we the people don&rsquo;t restrain them within their confined duties, then that&rsquo;s where the seeds of dissolution of the entire republic are. And it will grow and grow and grow and grow, and eventually it will dissolve the entire republic of the United States of America. And that&rsquo;s what we&rsquo;re seeing, we&rsquo;re seeing the breakdown of the rule of law, and when they make it up as they go, it doesn&rsquo;t really matter. So that&rsquo;s the problem that we have in this case.&rdquo;</p>
<p align="center"><iframe frameborder="no" height="166" scrolling="no" src="https://w.soundcloud.com/player/?url=https%3A//api.soundcloud.com/tracks/286410420&amp;color=ff5500&amp;auto_play=false&amp;hide_related=false&amp;show_comments=true&amp;show_user=true&amp;show_reposts=false" width="100%"></iframe></p>
Equality For AllMarriage EqualityFair and Just CourtsFighting the RightC4Liberty Counsel Mat Staver Roy Moore Marriage EqualityThu, 06 Oct 2016 20:21:42 +0000Miranda Blue80396 at http://www.pfaw.orgRoy Moore Suspended For Defying Federal Courts On Marriage Equalityhttp://www.rightwingwatch.org/content/roy-moore-suspended-defying-federal-courts-marriage-equality
<p>Alabama Chief Justice Roy Moore, famous for having lost his seat on the court in 2003 when he defied a federal order to remove a Ten Commandments monument from the state judicial building, has been sanctioned yet again by the state&rsquo;s Court of the Judiciary, which ordered today that Moore be <a href="http://www.al.com/news/birmingham/index.ssf/2016/09/alabama_supreme_court_chief_ju.html">suspended without pay</a> for the remainder of his term in office, this time for defying federal court decisions on marriage equality.</p>
<p>Moore was already under temporary suspension&nbsp;<a href="http://www.al.com/news/index.ssf/2016/05/alabama_chief_justice_roy_moor_10.html">until the court heard his case</a>. The court <a href="https://www.splcenter.org/sites/default/files/roymoore_finaljudgment_09302016.pdf">ruled unanimously</a> that the suspension be continued until Moore&rsquo;s term in office runs out&nbsp;<a href="http://www.wvtm13.com/article/supreme-court-justice-roy-moore-suspended-for-rest-of-term/4367789">in 2018</a>.</p>
<p>The Court of the Judiciary&rsquo;s <a href="https://www.splcenter.org/sites/default/files/roymoore_finaljudgment_09302016.pdf">ruling</a> is a brutal smackdown of the attempts by Moore and his attorney, Liberty Counsel&rsquo;s Mat Staver, to justify the chief justice&rsquo;s efforts to stop marriage equality from taking effect in his state.</p>
<p>The court&rsquo;s judges make clear in the ruling that their decision on Moore&rsquo;s case has nothing to do with their opinions about the Obergefell ruling, which they note &ldquo;some members of this court did not personally agree with or think was well reasoned.&rdquo;</p>
<p>However, they reject Moore&rsquo;s recent&nbsp;<a href="http://www.metroweekly.com/2016/09/alabama-supreme-court-justice-defends-ethics-violation-charges/">attempt to claim</a> that his <a href="http://www.rightwingwatch.org/content/roy-moore-tries-block-gay-marriage-alabama-again">January order</a> requiring state probate judges to defy Obergefell and refrain from issuing marriage licenses to same-sex couples was nothing more than a &ldquo;status update&rdquo; on the law. In fact, they note that a press release from Staver himself the day the order was issued completely contradicts that claim:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>Chief Justice Moore&rsquo;s arguments that his actions and words mean something other than what they clearly express is not a new strategy. In 2003, this court&rsquo;s order removing Chief Justice Moore quoted the following testimony from him before the [Judicial Inquiry Commission]:</p>
<p class="rteindent1">&ldquo;I did what I did because I upheld my oath. And that&rsquo;s what I did, so I have no apologies for it. I would do it again. I didn&rsquo;t say I would defy the court order. I said I wouldn&rsquo;t move the monument. And I didn&rsquo;t move the monument, which you can take as you will.&rdquo;</p>
<p>Just as Chief Justice Moore&rsquo;s decision that he &ldquo;wouldn&rsquo;t move the monument&rdquo; was, in fact, defiance of the federal court order binding him, a disinterested reasonable observer, fully informed of all the relevant facts, would conclude that the undeniable consequence of the January 6, 2016, order was to order and direct the probate judges to deny marriage licenses in direct defiance of the United States Supreme Court in <u>Obergefell </u>and the <u>Strawser</u> injunction.</p>
<p>Indeed, to see that the January 6, 2016, order can be reasonably read as requiring defiance of the United States Supreme Court and the district court in <u>Strawser</u>, we need to look no further than a press release issued by Mat Staver&mdash;Chief Justice Moore&rsquo;s own counsel in these proceedings and one of the counsel of record in <u>API</u>&mdash;that was issued the same day as the January 6, 2016, order. In that press release, which solely addressed the January 6, 2016 order, Staver asserted:</p>
<p class="rteindent1">&ldquo;In Alabama&hellip;state judiciaries&hellip;are standing up against the federal judiciary or any one [sic] else who wants to come up with some cockeyed view that somehow the Constitution now births some newfound notion of same-sex marriage.&rdquo;</p>
<p>Chief Justice Moore&rsquo;s contention that the only purpose and plausible reading of the January 6, 2016, order is that of a &ldquo;status update&rdquo; is entirely unconvincing.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>In fact, in a public <a href="http://www.lc.org/newsroom/details/093016-chief-justice-moore-suspended-for-term-by-coj">press release</a> this morning after the ruling came down, Staver claimed again that Moore&rsquo;s order was &ldquo;merely a status report&quot;and, ironically, accused the court of throwing &ldquo;the rule of law out the window.&rdquo; However, in an email to Liberty Counsel supporters, he declared, &ldquo;Liberty Counsel upholds &#39;just&#39; laws&mdash;and the moral law of God. In Alabama and across America, in state judiciaries and legislatures, Liberty Counsel&#39;s legal team is standing against the federal judiciary, resisting tyrannical rule, and upholding the moral law of God.&rdquo;</p>
<p><strong>UPDATE: </strong>Moore<a href="http://www.theplainsman.com/article/2016/09/chief-justice-roy-moore-suspended-for-remainder-of-term"> released a statement</a> saying &ldquo;This was a politically motivated effort by radical homosexual and transgender groups to remove me as Chief Justice of the Supreme Court because of outspoken opposition to their immoral agenda.&rdquo;</p>
Equality For AllMarriage EqualityFair and Just CourtsFighting the RightC4Liberty Counsel Mat Staver Roy Moore Marriage EqualityFri, 30 Sep 2016 16:38:31 +0000Miranda Blue80116 at http://www.pfaw.orgMat Staver: Roy Moore Faces The 'Death Penalty'! (Of His Career)http://www.rightwingwatch.org/content/mat-staver-roy-moore-faces-death-penalty-his-career
<p>Alabama Chief Justice Roy Moore is currently <a href="http://www.al.com/news/birmingham/index.ssf/2016/09/live_updates_roy_moore_judicia.html">facing trial</a> before the state&rsquo;s Court of the Judiciary after a judicial ethics panel called for his removal from the bench due to his <a href="http://www.rightwingwatch.org/content/roy-moore-tries-block-gay-marriage-alabama-again">efforts to defy the federal courts</a> on marriage equality.</p>
<p>Moore is being represented by Liberty Counsel attorney Mat Staver, who also represented Kentucky clerk Kim Davis in her efforts to defy the Supreme Court&rsquo;s Obergefell decision.</p>
<p>In an <a href="http://www.faithradio.org/MeetingHouse">interview</a> with an Alabama Christian radio station yesterday, Staver insisted that the state&rsquo;s Judicial Inquiry Commission is seeking the &ldquo;death penalty&rdquo; for Moore in the sense that removing him from the bench would &ldquo;kill his career.&rdquo;</p>
<p>Bob Crittenden, the host of &ldquo;Meeting House&rdquo; on the Alabama-based Faith Radio, asked Staver if the court could choose to take a less severe action against Moore than removing him from his post, which Staver said would be like a prosecutor asking for a first-degree murder charge and then changing her request when that doesn&rsquo;t work out.</p>
<p>What the commission is asking for, he said, &ldquo;is total removal, not anything less, not suspension, not punishment, not reprimand&mdash;total removal. They&rsquo;re asking for the highest penalty. They&rsquo;re asking, if you will, for the death penalty, in that sense, to kill his career, end his career. And I don&rsquo;t think they can punt and go back to some lesser issue.&rdquo;</p>
<p>He added that the process of being charged and suspended from his job has been punishment enough for Moore.</p>
<p>If past experience is any indication, being removed from the bench would far from &ldquo;kill&rdquo; Moore&rsquo;s career. Back in 2003, he was <a href="http://www.rightwingwatch.org/content/here-we-go-again-roy-moore-suspended-defying-gay-marriage-rulings">removed from the state supreme court</a> for flouting an order to remove a 10 Commandments statue from the state judicial building, which he followed up with an activist career, a number of political campaigns, and ultimately his reelection to the court.</p>
<p align="center"><iframe frameborder="no" height="166" scrolling="no" src="https://w.soundcloud.com/player/?url=https%3A//api.soundcloud.com/tracks/285112840&amp;color=ff5500&amp;auto_play=false&amp;hide_related=false&amp;show_comments=true&amp;show_user=true&amp;show_reposts=false" width="100%"></iframe></p>
Equality For AllMarriage EqualityFair and Just CourtsFighting the RightC4Liberty Counsel Mat Staver Roy Moore AlabamaMarriage EqualityWed, 28 Sep 2016 15:06:12 +0000Miranda Blue79976 at http://www.pfaw.org Religious Right Leaders Vow To Defy Laws On Abortion, 'Sexual Perversion' In 'Declaration Of Dependence Upon God'http://www.rightwingwatch.org/content/religious-right-leaders-vow-defy-laws-abortion-sexual-perversion-declaration-dependence-upon
<p>A group of Religious Right activists, including prominent advocates of dominionism, have joined together to circulate a &ldquo;<a href="https://dependenceongod.com/">Declaration of Dependence upon God and His Holy Bible</a>&rdquo; in which signers vow to &ldquo;refuse any mandate by the government that forces us to fund or support abortion&rdquo; and to &ldquo;oppose same-sex marriage, polygamy, bestiality, and all other forms of sexual perversion prohibited by Holy Scripture.</p>
<p>Colorado Springs pastor Andrew Wommack, who wrote the pledge, <a href="https://dependenceongod.com/">says</a> that he will spend $500,000 promoting it online and in newspaper ads. On Sunday, Wommack&rsquo;s ministry bought a pricey full-page ad in the New York Times that showed the full text of the &ldquo;declaration&rdquo; and some of its most prominent signers.</p>
<p>Among those who have signed Wommack&rsquo;s pledge, according to the ad, is Religious Right activist <a href="http://www.rightwingwatch.org/category/people/david-barton">David Barton</a>, who has been <a href="http://www.rightwingwatch.org/content/david-barton-training-christian-college-students-conquer-mountain-government">teaching students</a> at a Bible college run by Wommack to retake the &ldquo;mountain&rdquo; of government in accordance with the Seven Mountains dominionist belief that conservative Christians must take control of the seven areas, or &ldquo;mountains,&rdquo; of society.</p>
<p>Other signers are <a href="http://www.rightwingwatch.org/category/people/jerry-boykin">Jerry Boykin</a>, the executive vice president of the Family Research Council; Focus on the Family founder <a href="http://www.rightwingwatch.org/category/people/james-dobson">James Dobson</a>; prominent televangelist <a href="http://www.rightwingwatch.org/category/people/kenneth-copeland">Kenneth Copeland</a>; leading Seven Mountains advocate <a href="http://www.rightwingwatch.org/category/people/lance-wallnau">Lance Wallnau</a>; prosperity gospel preacher <a href="https://thinkprogress.org/prosperity-gospel-pastor-is-asking-his-church-to-buy-him-a-65-million-jet-c1df63baa330#.zg1lc7f6u">Creflo Dollar</a>; and <a href="http://www.rightwingwatch.org/category/people/kelly-shackelford">Kelly Shackelford</a>, whose First Liberty Institute has been at the forefront of the narrative that conservative Christians are losing their religious liberty in America.</p>
<p>Another notable signer is Oklahoma state Sen. Nathan Dahm, who earlier this year <a href="http://www.politico.com/story/2016/05/oklahoma-abortions-felony-223369">sponsored a bill</a> to make abortion a felony in the state, which was <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/post-nation/wp/2016/05/20/oklahoma-governor-vetoes-bill-that-would-make-it-a-felony-to-perform-abortions/?utm_term=.835330c9c492"> vetoed </a> by Republican Gov. Mary Fallin.</p>
<p>Among the signers are some prominent supporters of Donald Trump&rsquo;s presidential bid. Dobson and Copeland are members of <a href="http://www.rightwingwatch.org/content/donald-trump-taps-michele-bachmann-james-dobson-other-far-right-leaders-advisory-board"> Trump&rsquo;s evangelical advisory board</a>. Boykin was recently one of the retired military leaders to <a href="http://www.rightwingwatch.org/content/donald-trump-touts-endorsement-far-right-activist-jerry-boykin">sign a letter supporting Trump</a>, which was promoted by the GOP nominee&rsquo;s campaign. Wallnau is <a href="http://www.rightwingwatch.org/content/national-diversity-coalition-trump-exactly-what-youd-expect">a member</a> of the &ldquo;National Diversity Coalition for Trump&rdquo; who has <a href="http://www.rightwingwatch.org/content/lance-wallnau-trump-can-help-stop-satan-taking-control-seven-mountains"> argued</a> that Trump can help reclaim the &ldquo;seven mountains&rdquo; from Satan.</p>
<p>In a <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RdAm1FXUAQc">video message</a>, Wommack says that he believes he was &ldquo;divinely inspired&rdquo; to write the declaration, warning that &ldquo;Satan is fighting for the heart and soul of this nation.&rdquo;</p>
<p align="center"><iframe allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="315" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/RdAm1FXUAQc" width="560"></iframe></p>
<p><a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2Bs93vOc1a4">Another video</a> promoting the declaration shows Fox News pundit Todd Starnes reacting to the Supreme Court&rsquo;s marriage equality decision, saying, &ldquo;The Supreme Court&rsquo;s decision means gay rights now trump religious liberty. If you think the cultural purging of the southern states has been breathtaking, wait until you see what the activists are about to release on American Christians.&rdquo; In the video, a young girl turns to her grandfather and asks, &ldquo;Grandpa, we&rsquo;re Christians, aren&rsquo;t we?&rdquo;</p>
<p>Wommack&rsquo;s declaration reads like a shorter version of the&nbsp;<a href="http://manhattandeclaration.org/man_dec_resources/Manhattan_Declaration_full_text.pdf">Manhattan Declaration</a>, a <a href="http://www.rightwingwatch.org/content/rights-new-manhattan-project">2009 document</a> that joined conservative Catholic and evangelical leaders in a pledge to commit civil disobedience in the face of the supposed impending government persecution of Christians.</p>
<p>Here&rsquo;s the full text of the &ldquo;Declaration of Dependence upon God and His Holy Bible&rdquo;:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal and endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights. Since our Creator gave us these rights, we declare that no government has the right to take them away. Among these rights is the right to exercise our Christian beliefs as put forth in God&rsquo;s Holy Bible.</p>
<p>We therefore declare that God grants life at conception and no one has the right to take that life unless it is a direct threat to the life of the mother.</p>
<p>Marriage was instituted by God between one man and one woman. The Lord gave only this family unit the responsibility to have children and raise them in the fear of the Lord.</p>
<p>We therefore respectfully reserve the right to refuse any mandate by the government that forces us to fund or support abortion. We also oppose same-sex marriage, polygamy, bestiality, and all other forms of sexual perversion prohibited by Holy Scripture.</p>
<p>We proclaim that Jesus has provided the cure for all sin and therefore reach out to the sinner in love, but do not embrace the sin, knowing its destructive nature.</p>
<p>Therefore, we, the undersigned&mdash;not only as Christians but also believing we have the constitutional rights as Americans to follow these time honored Christian beliefs&mdash;commit to conducting our churches, ministries, businesses, and personal lives in accordance with our Christian faith and choose to obey God rather than man.</p>
</blockquote>
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Fighting the RightC4First LibertyWallbuilders Family Research CouncilFamily TalkAndrew WommackJames Dobson Jerry BoykinKelly Shackelford Kenneth CopelandLance WallnauCreflo DollarDavid Barton Anti-ChoiceAnti-Gaymanhattan declarationMarriage Equalityreligious persecution rhetoricReproductive HealthMon, 26 Sep 2016 15:00:28 +0000Miranda Blue79821 at http://www.pfaw.orgNOM Draws Tiny Crowd To Protest Mexico Marriage Equalityhttp://www.rightwingwatch.org/content/nom-draws-tiny-crowd-protest-mexico-marriage-equality
<p>The National Organization for Marriage&rsquo;s Brian Brown has been <a href="http://www.rightwingwatch.org/content/brian-brown-mobilizing-support-anti-equality-campaign-mexico">attempting to mobilize U.S. support</a> for activists in Mexico who are trying to stop President Enrique Pe&ntilde;a Nieto from putting marriage equality into the country&rsquo;s constitution.</p>
<p>However, like a lot of NOM&rsquo;s&nbsp;<a href="http://www.rightwingwatch.org/content/pastor-says-dismal-turnout-noms-march-marriage-helps-satan-seals-americas-doom">recent</a> <a href="https://thinkprogress.org/29-revealing-photos-from-this-weekends-anti-gay-march-for-marriage-d3963ffa57e2#.onvhxv6l9">efforts</a>, this one doesn&rsquo;t seem to quite be catching on.</p>
<p>Today, NOM <a href="http://christiannewswire.com/news/2748978465.html">hosted a rally</a> in front of the Mexican embassy in Washington, D.C., along with the World Congress of Families, which Brown also <a href="http://www.rightwingwatch.org/content/noms-brian-brown-lead-global-anti-lgbt-efforts-world-congress-families">now leads</a>, and CitizenGo, an international petition platform whose board Brown sits on.</p>
<p>The rally drew a grand total of 11 people, not counting a handful of children in strollers, bystanders and reporters:</p>
<p align="center"><img alt="" src="/sites/default/files/images/a_story_rww/DSC_0007.JPG" style="width: 500px; height: 333px;" /></p>
<p align="center"><img alt="" src="/sites/default/files/images/a_story_rww/DSC_0004.JPG" style="width: 500px; height: 333px;" /></p>
<p>Brown, who has said he is <a href="http://www.rightwingwatch.org/content/brian-brown-mobilizing-support-anti-equality-campaign-mexico">traveling to Mexico City</a> for anti-marriage-equality marches there this weekend, was not in attendance. One activist who was there was Gualberto Garcia Jones, a&nbsp;<a href="http://www.pfaw.org/rww-in-focus/personhood-movement-where-it-comes-and-what-it-means-future-choice">fetal &ldquo;personhood&rdquo; advocate</a> who now&nbsp;<a href="http://www.internationalhrgroup.org/about-us">runs an organization</a> called the International Human Rights Group, which shares a <a href="http://www.internationalhrgroup.org/contact-us">Washington</a> <a href="http://www.citizengo.org/en/presse">office</a> with Brown&rsquo;s CitizenGo.</p>
<p>At the rally, activists read a letter that they said they were delivering to the Mexican ambassador announcing that they were joining &ldquo;in spirit&rdquo; the protests this weekend led by the National Front for the Family.</p>
<p>The letter stated the group&rsquo;s support for &ldquo;natural marriage as a stable relationship between one man and one woman,&rdquo; saying that &ldquo;several scientific research studies&rdquo; have shown that this is the best environment for children. It claimed that &ldquo;extracting marriage from its procreative and educative purpose &hellip; weakens the legal, social and cultural fabric&rdquo; of a society. The letter also included a reference to adoption by gay couples and a plea to keep &ldquo;content and ideologies that do not belong to the public educative sphere&rdquo; out of school curricula, instead demanding that curricula be based on &ldquo;scientific criteria.&rdquo;</p>
Fighting the RightC4CitizenGoInternational Human Rights GroupNational Organization for MarriageWorld Congress of Families Gualberto Garcia JonesBrian BrownAnti-GayInternationalMarriage EqualityFri, 23 Sep 2016 17:54:51 +0000Miranda Blue79781 at http://www.pfaw.org ‘Welcome To The War’ – Jim Garlow’s New Book On ‘Biblical Applicationalism’http://www.rightwingwatch.org/content/welcome-war-jim-garlow-s-new-book-biblical-applicationalism
<p>One of the giveaways at the recent <a href="http://www.rightwingwatch.org/category/topics/values-voter-summit">Values Voter Summit</a> was a new book from <a href="http://www.rightwingwatch.org/category/people/jim-garlow">Jim Garlow</a>, a California pastor who mobilized churches to organize on behalf of California&rsquo;s anti-marriage-equality Prop 8 in 2008 and says his daily one-minute radio commentaries are heard on 850 stations across the country.</p>
<p>After getting through Garlow&rsquo;s &ldquo;Well Versed: Biblical Answers to Today&rsquo;s Tough Issues,&rdquo; I was surprised that David Barton was not mentioned in the acknowledgments, because the book is a very Bartonesque argument that politicians should look to the Bible for policy guidance on everything from healthcare to the minimum wage to climate change.</p>
<p>&ldquo;There is no major world issue about which the Word does not provide basic and transcendent truths,&rdquo; Garlow writes. He complains that people understand that the Bible applies to their personal lives, but</p>
<p style="margin-left:.5in;">&hellip;when we hear the word <em>political</em>, we shut our Bibles and recoil, as if God has no interest in government, in spite of the fact that it was God who first invented it (Isaiah 9:6). Christians&mdash;particularly pastors&mdash;seem to run from the political. The Evil One delights over this situation. But a Sovereign King refuses to yield any ground to the Evil One. He intends for us to do the same.</p>
<p>Garlow&rsquo;s first chapter asks, &ldquo;Why are we quiet?&rdquo; Perhaps in a nod to Donald Trump, Garlow says the 1954 Johnson Amendment, which bans overt politicking by tax-exempt nonprofit organizations, including churches, &ldquo;effectively silenced and muzzled all pastors.&rdquo; Anyone who follows American politics can be forgiven for raising an eyebrow at the notion that conservative religious leaders have been &ldquo;silenced&rdquo; and &ldquo;muzzled,&rdquo; but it is an article of faith at Religious Right gatherings that America&rsquo;s moral decline is the fault of overly timid preachers. Garlow does not like timid, and neither, he says, does Jesus, whom he describes as a &ldquo;man&rsquo;s man&rdquo; and &ldquo;no wimp.&rdquo;</p>
<p style="margin-left:.5in;">We are in a war: a war for truth, righteousness, and justice. The pages that follow are designed to equip you for success in those battles. Welcome to the war.</p>
<p>Garlow says what he&rsquo;s calling for is &ldquo;biblical applicationalism&rdquo; and a return to the idea of a nation founded on biblical truth. He repeatedly says that he is not calling for theocracy, and says he&rsquo;s not a dominionist. But among those whose quotes he uses to open chapters in his book is Christian Reconstructionist <a href="http://www.rightwingwatch.org/category/people/gary-demar">Gary DeMar</a>. And one of three people he thanks as members of his &ldquo;spectacular research and writing team&rdquo; is <a href="http://www.rightwingwatch.org/category/people/gary-cass">Gary Cass</a>, who Garlow calls &ldquo;a pastor who &lsquo;gets it,&rsquo; who has a staggering grasp of historical theology and its relevance to current culture.&rdquo; Cass is a former director of the Center for Reclaiming America for Christ. Two years ago he <a href="http://www.patheos.com/blogs/slacktivist/2014/09/08/so-who-is-this-gary-cass-guy/">generated controversy</a> with a Charisma magazine column entitled <a href="http://defendchristians.org/commentary/im-islamaphobic-are-you/">&ldquo;Why We Cannot Coexist,&rdquo;</a> in which he said that Muslims and Christians cannot co-exist and that &ldquo;The only thing that is biblical and that 1400 years of history has shown to work is overwhelming Christian just war and overwhelming self-defense.&rdquo; After the column generated a protest campaign with the hashtag #CancelTheCrusades, Charisma took down Cass&rsquo;s call to &ldquo;crush the vicious seed of Ishmael in Jesus name.&rdquo;</p>
<p>Garlow does not call for a worldwide holy war, but he does complain, &ldquo;Our societal and cultural desire to accept everyone has stopped us from acknowledging the evil clearly written into Islamic tenets.&rdquo;</p>
<p>Garlow, like Donald Trump, disparages political correctness:</p>
<p style="margin-left:.5in;">Not surprisingly, the promoters and users of PC tactics are those who typically hate biblical truth, traditional morality, sexual restraint, personal responsibility, the nuclear family, or any other concept based on transcendent, unchanging truth revealed by an almighty God for our society&rsquo;s good.</p>
<p>Says Garlow, &ldquo;Unfortunately, Christian religious tolerance has devolved into a secular monstrosity called multiculturalism.&rdquo; Tolerance is a &ldquo;weapon&rdquo; to &ldquo;destroy and discredit our values in the public square,&rdquo; he writes.</p>
<p style="margin-left:.5in;">Cultural progressives will not be satisfied with silence; they want a complete and unconditional surrender. That is the nature of spiritual warfare; there is no peaceful coexistence.</p>
<p>&ldquo;Religious liberty is under attack from godless, sexual anarchists,&rdquo; he declares. Garlow, of course, is stridently opposed to legal equality for LGBT people. &ldquo;There is no God-given right to do wrong,&rdquo; he writes. &ldquo;Every sinful act is by definition a lawless one.&rdquo; Garlow says it is &ldquo;quite likely&rdquo; that &ldquo;there is no such thing&rdquo; as sexual orientation and he seems to wish gay people would just slink back into the closet. &ldquo;For years that chant was, <em>what we do in our bedroom is our business</em>,&rdquo; he writes. &ldquo;If that is the case, then they should <em>keep</em> their business in their bedrooms.&rdquo;</p>
<p>Hate crimes laws are, in his view, &ldquo;inherently unjust&rdquo; and &ldquo;are a form of legally justified revenge against someone whose actions violate some standard of political correctness.&rdquo; And, he says, &ldquo;Hate crimes inevitably lead to hate speech and ultimately thought crimes.&rdquo;</p>
<p>Garlow also devotes plenty of space to arguments about the kinds of authority the Bible grants to government, ideas that are <a href="http://www.politicalresearch.org/2015/04/21/biblical-economics-the-divine-laissez-faire-mandate/">grounded in Christian Reconstructionism</a> and have been embraced by much of the Religious Right. The term social justice &ldquo;has taken a distinctly anti-scriptural meaning,&rdquo; he says, and liberal churches &ldquo;cherry-pick the Bible to advance a humanistic (Marxist) definition of economic justice.&rdquo;</p>
<p>&ldquo;The biggest problem is that it confuses social justice&rsquo;s governmental confiscation of private property with authentic <em>biblical</em> justice, which it isn&rsquo;t,&rdquo; says Garlow. Some taxation is biblically acceptable, he says, in order to pay for things like national defense. But, he argues, &ldquo;Nowhere in the Bible is the government authorized to take from the rich to give to the poor nor to redistribute wealth.&rdquo; That kind of taxation, he says, is theft:</p>
<p style="margin-left:.5in;">Any forced redistribution of the fruit of a man&rsquo;s labor violates God&rsquo;s command not to steal. Theft is still theft, even when it&rsquo;s the government picking your pocket. Whether by a gun (a thief) or through a tax (by the IRS), the impact is still the same: you no longer have what you earned.</p>
<p>Food stamps are also unbiblical, he says. Not surprisingly, Garlow cites <a href="http://www.rightwingwatch.org/category/people/star-parker">Star Parker</a>, a favorite at Religious Right conferences for her attacks on welfare recipients as lazy freeloaders. Writes Garlow, &ldquo;Show me a person who uses their welfare dollars to buy lottery tickets and play the casino slots, and you will see as much greed as an inner city slumlord.&rdquo;</p>
<p>Because he argues that the Bible gives churches, not government, the responsibility to care for the poor, Garlow&rsquo;s proposal for a &ldquo;biblical tax code&rdquo; includes a 3.33 percent tax that would be given to local houses of worship, replacing government welfare programs that he says are rife with abuse and corruption. He says by letting churches take care of people, his plan would be &ldquo;assuring funds went to the genuinely needy, offering job hunting assistance, and, at the same time, proper prodding of the slothful and lazy.&rdquo;</p>
<p>Social Security is also unbiblical, according to Garlow. &ldquo;Biblically, entitlement programs and forced savings/retirement insurance programs like Social Security are never the role of the civil government,&rdquo; he says. &ldquo;With the Social Security Act of 1946, the government has stepped outside of its prescribed role and into areas it had no right to enter.&rdquo;</p>
<p>Besides, &ldquo;Where does it say in the Bible that we are supposed to retire at sixty-five, or at any age for that matter?&rdquo; Garlow asks. He complains, &ldquo;After a life of hard work, Americans now feel an entitlement to unproductivity.&rdquo; But sooner or later Social Security will collapse and people will get back to &ldquo;God&rsquo;s design for society&rdquo; by &ldquo;having lots of godly, hardworking children&rdquo; who will take care of their parents in old age.</p>
<p>Garlow also takes on climate change, writing that &ldquo;at its core global warming is a battle between two worldviews in direct opposition: biblical truth and evolutionary untruths.&rdquo; Garlow writes that &ldquo;all the major global datasets reveal the earth hasn&rsquo;t warmed since 1977&rdquo; and &ldquo;NASA scientists are now discovering record levels of ice in the Arctic.&rdquo; Writes Garlow, &ldquo;The reality is this: we&rsquo;re all just fine. God remains in complete control of His creation.&rdquo;</p>
<p>Just to do a little <a href="https://weather.com/news/climate/news/august-2016-global-temperature-record">reality</a> check on his claims, August 2016 was the 16th straight hottest month ever recorded globally. And while Antarctic wintertime ice hit record highs in 2012-2014 before returning to average levels in 2015, &ldquo;both the Arctic wintertime maximum and its summer minimum extent have been in a sharp decline for the past decades,&rdquo; <a href="http://www.nasa.gov/content/goddard/antarctic-sea-ice-reaches-new-record-maximum">according to NASA</a>. &ldquo;Studies show that globally, the decreases in Arctic ice far exceed the increases in Antarctic sea ice.&rdquo;</p>
<p>On it goes, through 31 chapters. Our educational system &ldquo;is consumed with anti-Christian bigotry.&rdquo; Government should do away with no-fault divorce. Unions were legitimate at a time of deplorable and dangerous working conditions, but have &ldquo;become as abusive as eighteenth century employers.&rdquo; God wants workers and employers to negotiate without any third-party involvement from government or unions. In a break with the hard right, Garlow does call for immigration reform that offers those who have been in the country illegally a pathway to remaining in the country.&nbsp;</p>
<p>Garlow also takes on the federal judiciary. He calls the Supreme Court&rsquo;s marriage equality ruling &ldquo;quite possibly the strongest attack on Christians and Christian values ever written by a sitting Justice in a majority opinion.&rdquo; Justices, he says, are &ldquo;knowingly lying about what the Constitution says and what its words mean and, as such, are in direct violation of Exodus 20:16,&rdquo; which <a href="http://biblehub.com/exodus/20-16.htm">prohibits</a> &ldquo;false testimony.&rdquo;</p>
<p>Garlow says there&rsquo;s no quick fix to bad court rulings because Congress doesn&rsquo;t have the courage to impeach justices. It will require &ldquo;America to experience a spiritual renewal, or at least an adherence to biblical values such as integrity.&rdquo; But he does call for state officials to nullify and defy federal court rulings on abortion and LGBT equality: &ldquo;We need principled, <em>constitutional</em>, pro-life, and pro-family state legislators and governors to defy the Feds and enforce state laws.&rdquo; And he calls for individual citizens to nullify &ldquo;ungodly&rdquo; and &ldquo;unjust&rdquo; laws, citing the <a href="http://www.rightwingwatch.org/category/organizations/manhattan-declaration">Manhattan Declaration</a>&rsquo;s vow of civil disobedience and adding, &ldquo;May we have the discernment and courage to do what is right and obey God rather than man.&rdquo;</p>
<p>&nbsp;</p>
Fighting the RightReligious LibertyJim GarlowChristian ReconstructionismChurch-StateClimate changeDominionismMarriage EqualityValues Voter SummitThu, 22 Sep 2016 15:41:23 +0000Peter Montgomery79726 at http://www.pfaw.orgBrian Camenker Takes His Anti-Equality 'War' To Mexicohttp://www.rightwingwatch.org/content/brian-camenker-takes-his-anti-equality-war-mexico
<p>We have previously reported that Brian Brown of the National Organization for Marriage and the World Congress of Families is <a href="http://www.rightwingwatch.org/content/brian-brown-mobilizing-support-anti-equality-campaign-mexico">lending his support to the growing backlash against marriage equality by religious conservatives in Mexico</a>. Turns out the intensely anti-gay <a href="http://www.rightwingwatch.org/category/people/brian-camenker">Brian Camenker</a> of <a href="http://www.rightwingwatch.org/category/organizations/massresistance">MassResistance</a> is also helping out.</p>
<p>In <a href="http://massresistance.com/docs/gen3/16c/Mexico-marriage-rallies/index.html">a September 16 post</a> on its website, MassResistance wrote that over the summer Camenker responded to a plea for help from organizers of Mexico&rsquo;s National Front for the Family. Camenker sent the group digital files of the Spanish-language version of his group&rsquo;s booklet, &ldquo;What same-sex &lsquo;marriage&rsquo; has done to Massachusetts: It&rsquo;s far worse than most people realize&rdquo; and a <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1lKdWPRz2U4">Spanish version</a> of his group&rsquo;s video, <a href="http://www.massresistance.org/docs/marriage/video_2013/index.html">&ldquo;What &lsquo;gay marriage&rsquo; has done to Massachusetts.&rdquo;</a> (Among the &ldquo;shocking&rdquo; things the video mentions are requirements that insurance companies must recognize legal marriages by same-sex couples and lawyers must learn about legal equality.)</p>
<p>The National Front has invited Camenker to Mexico City for <a href="http://religiondispatches.org/more-bleak-times-for-indonesian-lgbts-south-africa-bans-extremist-anti-gay-us-pastor-mexican-marriage-struggle-heats-up-global-lgbt-recap/">what the group hopes will be a massive anti-marriage-equality rally</a> this Saturday, September 24, building on other rallies that have taken place across the country this month.</p>
<p>The post says that the California chapter of MassResistance is planning to hold a rally in solidarity at the Mexican consulate in Los Angeles and hopes that other chapters will get on board. The National Organization for Marriage has announced plans for <a href="https://www.facebook.com/events/294988127534078/">an anti-marriage-equality rally at the Mexican embassy in Washington, D.C.</a> this Friday, September 23. <a href="http://www.rightwingwatch.org/category/organizations/citizengo">CitizenGo</a>, a conservative platform for online organizing that has <a href="http://www.rightwingwatch.org/content/brian-browns-citizengo-promoting-anti-lgbt-referendum-slovakia">mobilized</a> on behalf of anti-gay efforts around the globe, is also promoting the D.C. event.</p>
<p><a href="http://www.rightwingwatch.org/content/anti-gay-warm-act-world-congress-families-war">Camenker was a speaker at an anti-gay summit</a> that was held in Salt Lake City last October on the eve of a World Congress of Families summit. Camenker disagreed with people who urged anti-LGBT activists to always speak the truth in love. &ldquo;I think there is a place for being insulting and degrading, and I think I can back that up by scripture,&rdquo; he said. As <a href="http://www.rightwingwatch.org/content/anti-gay-warm-act-world-congress-families-war">we reported at the time</a>:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>Camenker said that in the Old Testament, &ldquo;God has two sets of laws regarding how you treat your fellow man.&rdquo; One is how you treat your neighbor, who you might work with and forgive. &ldquo;There&rsquo;s a whole different set of rules for people who want to tear down society, who want to push immorality, who want to tear down the moral structure of society.&rdquo; That set of rules is &ldquo;very brutal,&rdquo; he said. &ldquo;God says those people who want to do that must be destroyed.&rdquo;</p>
<p>He said the LGBT movement is a &ldquo;house of cards&rdquo; that is &ldquo;held together by force, intimidation, and propaganda&rdquo; and can be destroyed by standing up to it, the way communism was. &ldquo;We are in a war,&rdquo; he repeated, saying of gay-rights advocates, &ldquo;They would send us to concentration camps if they could.&rdquo;</p>
</blockquote>
Equality For AllMarriage EqualityFighting the RightMassResistance National Organization for MarriageWorld Council of FamiliesBrian BrownBrian Camenker MassachusettsAnti-GayAnti-LGBTInternationalMarriage EqualityTue, 20 Sep 2016 18:09:24 +0000Peter Montgomery79631 at http://www.pfaw.orgSamuel Rodriguez Says His Freedom To Preach Is At Stake In 2016 Electionhttp://www.rightwingwatch.org/content/samuel-rodriguez-says-his-freedom-preach-stake-2016-election
<p><span style="line-height: 20.4px;">We have written before about </span><a href="http://www.rightwingwatch.org/category/organizations/my-faith-votes" style="line-height: 20.4px;">My Faith Votes</a><span style="line-height: 20.4px;">, a supposedly nonpartisan organization chaired by Donald Trump surrogate </span><a href="http://www.rightwingwatch.org/category/people/ben-carson" style="line-height: 20.4px;">Ben Carson</a><span style="line-height: 20.4px;"> and </span><a href="https://www.myfaithvotes.org/#aboutus" style="line-height: 20.4px;">supported by</a><span style="line-height: 20.4px;"> Religious Right activists including </span><a href="http://www.rightwingwatch.org/category/people/robert-jeffress" style="line-height: 20.4px;">Robert Jeffress</a><span style="line-height: 20.4px;">, </span><a href="http://www.rightwingwatch.org/category/people/richard-lee" style="line-height: 20.4px;">Richard Lee</a><span style="line-height: 20.4px;">, </span><a href="http://www.rightwingwatch.org/category/people/alveda-king" style="line-height: 20.4px;">Alveda King</a><span style="line-height: 20.4px;"> and </span><a href="http://www.rightwingwatch.org/category/people/kirk-cameron-0" style="line-height: 20.4px;">Kirk Cameron</a><span style="line-height: 20.4px;">. &nbsp;The group, which sponsored the meeting this summer between Trump and hundreds of Religious Right leaders, says on its website, &ldquo;My Faith Votes won&rsquo;t tell you who to choose but we can make the process easier.&rdquo; In fact, the group is not at all shy about telling Christians who they should vote for, as a recent </span><a href="https://www.myfaithvotes.org/events/teleforum/?eventid=26802" style="line-height: 20.4px;">interview with conservative Hispanic evangelical Samuel Rodriguez</a><span style="line-height: 20.4px;"> made clear.</span></p>
<p><a href="http://www.rightwingwatch.org/category/people/samuel-rodriguez">Rodriguez</a> also has a long track record of posturing as a political independent who is not wedded to, as he puts it, the agenda of the donkey or elephant, but of the lamb, Jesus Christ. Rodriguez, who had been critical of Trump&rsquo;s anti-immigration rhetoric earlier in the election process, now says he has had a &ldquo;wonderful conversation&rdquo; with Trump and has seen a &ldquo;significant pivot&rdquo; from the candidate when it comes to dealing humanely with people who have been in the country illegally for many years.</p>
<p>During the online interview and Q&amp;A session for My Faith Votes, Rodriguez repeated Religious Right alarms about religious liberty, saying that there is a Jezebel spirit in the land, one that intimidates and threatens Christians based on fear and hatred of Christianity and the &ldquo;biblical worldview.&rdquo;</p>
<p>Rodriguez fielded a couple of questions from people who are not happy with either of the presidential candidates and were not feeling motivated to vote. He was not having it, telling one person, &ldquo;In my personal opinion, the number one deliverable from the next president will be the Supreme Court.&rdquo; Citing the potential for the next president to nominate three or four justices, he said, &ldquo;Who I vote for has to be connected to which nominee&hellip;has committed to nominating justices on the court that will protect life and religious liberty and respect the image of God in every American. That&rsquo;s what compels me to vote in 2016.&rdquo;</p>
<p>In response to another discouraged voter, he argued that his very freedom to preach the gospel is at risk:</p>
<blockquote>
<p><span style="line-height: 20.4px;">We have to rise up and look beyond the candidates. We have to look at the issues that are at play here. What&rsquo;s at risk, truly? Will anything impact me? If I do not vote, will I personally suffer any consequences? Well, if you&rsquo;re a Christian, if you&rsquo;re a Bible-believing Christ follower, the answer is yes. There are legislative initiatives right now, that serve, that actually carry the great potential of limiting our expression of our Christian faith.</span></p>
<p><span style="line-height: 20.4px;">What if I tell you there are initiatives out there that would attempt to silence us from preaching about what the Bible may deem as sinful, and that speech may be deemed as hate speech, because it runs counter to a cultural narrative out there, a cultural thread or a cultural dynamic? Not only that; recently, as I alluded to in the beginning of this broadcast, in California there was an attempt to punish Christian colleges and universities for believing the Bible and preaching the Bible. It&rsquo;s this sort of thing taking place, not only in California but across the nation.</span></p>
<p><span style="line-height: 20.4px;">So staying home may very well jeopardize my ability as a pastor to reach people with the loving gospel of Jesus Christ. Without a doubt, staying at home carries the potential of enlarging and increasing the number of abortions that take place in this country. How about this: and around the world, because there are candidates that are committed to funding abortions around the world. My taxpayer money going out and helping someone else terminate a life. So if you care about the sanctity of life, and if you care about religious liberty, then you should care about voting this election.</span></p>
<p><span style="line-height: 20.4px;">And again, if you can&rsquo;t vote for a candidate, vote for the platform, vote for the party platforms, and the party platform that best will protect your right to be a Christian and reach others with the loving, grace-filled message of Jesus Christ.</span></p>
</blockquote>
<p>And in response to a questioner complaining that church leaders are not willing to talk to people about how to vote, he said:</p>
<p style="margin-left:.5in;">Elections have consequences. Because 25 million Christians did not vote in 2012, the institution of marriage suffered a radical transformation via the conduit of judicial and executive fiat. Elections have consequences. Because 25 million Christians did not vote in 2012, we have more and more children that were aborted, and we had an agency in America that sold aborted baby parts, and they were protected&hellip;This time, the stake is even higher and greater. The consequences are more egregious and more serious. So I would tell them, if you care about the future of America, if you care about the future of Christianity in America, you must vote. And you must vote righteousness and justice. And you must vote life and religious liberty. You must vote.</p>
<p>&nbsp;</p>
Fighting the RightReligious LibertyNational Hispanic Christian Leadership ConferenceSamuel Rodriguez2016 CandidatesAnti-AbortionAnti-GayAnti-LGBTElection 2016Marriage EqualityReligious LibertyMon, 19 Sep 2016 21:22:25 +0000Peter Montgomery79581 at http://www.pfaw.orgBrian Brown Mobilizing Support For Anti-Equality Campaign in Mexicohttp://www.rightwingwatch.org/content/brian-brown-mobilizing-support-anti-equality-campaign-mexico
<p><span style="line-height: 20.4px;">Marriage equality has been </span><a href="http://wockner.blogspot.com/2016/06/mexicos-wild-ride-to-marriage-equality.html" style="line-height: 20.4px;">spreading across Mexico</a><span style="line-height: 20.4px;"> as activists have engaged in a long-term strategy challenging discrimination in the federal courts and state legislatures. But after President Enrique Pe&ntilde;a Nieto announced this summer that he would like to put marriage equality into the country&rsquo;s constitution, conservative religious leaders have been </span><a href="http://religiondispatches.org/lgbt-activists-challenge-church-anti-marriage-efforts-govt-in-belize-creates-church-state-public-morality-commission-opponents-seek-to-stop-finlands-marriage-equality-law-before-it-takes-eff/" style="line-height: 20.4px;">mobilizing a backlash</a><span style="line-height: 20.4px;">. Now, U.S. anti-gay activist </span><a href="http://www.rightwingwatch.org/category/people/brian-brown" style="line-height: 20.4px;">Brian Brown</a><span style="line-height: 20.4px;"> of the </span><a href="http://www.rightwingwatch.org/category/organizations/national-organization-for-marriage" style="line-height: 20.4px;">National Organization for Marriage</a><span style="line-height: 20.4px;">, who </span><a href="http://www.rightwingwatch.org/content/noms-brian-brown-lead-global-anti-lgbt-efforts-world-congress-families" style="line-height: 20.4px;">became president</a><span style="line-height: 20.4px;"> of the anti-LGBT </span><a href="http://www.rightwingwatch.org/category/organizations/world-congress-of-families" style="line-height: 20.4px;">World Congress of Families</a><span style="line-height: 20.4px;"> earlier this year, is headed to Mexico to show his support.</span></p>
<p>Anti-equality activists at the National Front for the Family <a href="http://religiondispatches.org/lgbt-activists-challenge-church-anti-marriage-efforts-govt-in-belize-creates-church-state-public-morality-commission-opponents-seek-to-stop-finlands-marriage-equality-law-before-it-takes-eff/">organized marches in multiple cities</a> last weekend that were supported by Catholic Church officials. They&rsquo;re following up with a national anti-equality march scheduled for September 24. Religious conservatives would like <a href="http://religiondispatches.org/mexicos-religious-conservatives-seek-anti-lgbt-constitutional-amendment-lgbt-activists-defend-secular-government-cash-from-qatar-funds-traditional-family-activism-worldwide-global-lgbt-recap/">to amend the constitution</a> to ban abortion and sex ed as well as marriage by same-sex couples.</p>
<p>In a Wednesday email from the World Congress of Families, Brown writes:</p>
<p style="margin-left:.5in;">WCF is <a href="http://worldcongress.us2.list-manage.com/track/click?u=71b5ff0a93830214b96a42bf6&amp;id=1d9f4bc2d3&amp;e=0644ffecb7" target="_blank">launching a petition drive</a> to give you and citizens across the globe the opportunity to add your own voice to the National March for the Family in Mexico City. Even though most people can&#39;t be there in person, you can lend your name and voice to the effort to uphold marriage, protect children from &quot;gender ideology&quot; and support the right of parents to direct their children&#39;s education according to their own values and principles.</p>
<p style="margin-left:.5in;">I will personally deliver this petition to the leaders of National Front for the Family, including my friend, Rodrigo Ivan Cortes, when I meet with them in Mexico City.</p>
<p style="margin-left:.5in;">The National March for the Family has the potential of being the largest single demonstration of support for marriage, children and parental rights in history. Beyond its significance in the domestic affairs of Mexico, this march also can help advance the worldwide movement to support marriage, religious liberty and the truth of gender that we were made male and female.</p>
<p>Both Brown and the <a href="http://www.rightwingwatch.org/content/globalizing-homophobia-part-4-world-congress-families-and-russias-christian-saviors">World Congress of Families</a> have <a href="http://www.rightwingwatch.org/content/globalizing-homophobia-part-2-today-whole-world-looking-russia">a long track record</a> of <a href="http://www.rightwingwatch.org/category/topics/globalizing-homophobia">promoting anti-gay policies around the world</a>.</p>
Equality For AllMarriage EqualityFighting the RightNational Organization for MarriageWorld Congress of Families Brian BrownAnti-GayAnti-LGBTInternationalMarriage EqualityWed, 14 Sep 2016 18:01:20 +0000Peter Montgomery79361 at http://www.pfaw.orgKevin Swanson: 'It's Amazing That God Has Not Judged America' For Gay Rights & Legal Abortionhttp://www.rightwingwatch.org/content/kevin-swanson-its-amazing-god-has-not-judged-america-gay-rights-legal-abortion
<p>Kevin Swanson, the Colorado pastor and homeschooling activist who last year hosted three GOP presidential candidates <a href="http://www.rightwingwatch.org/content/gop-confab-ends-call-execute-gays-who-dont-repent-send-queen-elsa-back-hell">at a conference in Iowa</a>, hosted an <a href="http://noahconference.org/">event</a> near Cincinnati over the weekend to help families prepare their children to avoid cultural pitfalls and be prepared to enter the metaphorical Noah&rsquo;s ark of Christianity. Among the <a href="http://noahconference.org/">speakers</a> were Ken Ham, the Creationist activist who just completed a life-sized replica of Noah&rsquo;s ark near the site of the conference, and GOP favorites David, Jason and Flip Benham.</p>
<p>Swanson started things off by impressing upon attendees the need to prepare their children to fend off and avoid God&rsquo;s wrath by declaring that it&rsquo;s &ldquo;amazing that God has not judged America&rdquo; already for gay rights and legal abortion.</p>
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<p>&ldquo;It&rsquo;s amazing that God has not judged America in 1973,&rdquo; he said, &ldquo;hard to believe that God didn&rsquo;t judge America in 2001 [sic] with the Lawrence v. Texas decision, it&rsquo;s hard to believe that God didn&rsquo;t judge America with Obergefell.&rdquo;</p>
<p>&ldquo;It is amazing that God has not brought judgment upon this world shortly after [the Obergefell decision] happened in July [sic ]of 2015 or in August of 2015 or even in September of 2015 or maybe even October,&rdquo; he added.</p>
<p>&ldquo;So be assured, my friends,&rdquo; Swanson said, &ldquo;judgment is coming. I have no idea when it will come. Will it be 120 years from 1900? Will it be 120 years from 1890? Will it be 120 years from 1973, Roe v. Wade, the decision to eliminate hundreds of millions of babies in America and of course all around the world, same thing has happened since the 1960s? Will it be 120 years from 2015, the day on which the most powerful court in the world ruled against God&rsquo;s institution of marriage in one of the most radical, arrogant insults against Almighty God? When will God&rsquo;s judgment come? I have no idea, but I will tell you, it will come.&rdquo;</p>
<p>(It took Noah 120 years to build his ark before the Flood came, thus the 120-year delay in judgment that Swanson is suggesting.)</p>
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Fighting the RightC4Jason BenhamKen HamKevin SwansonDavid BenhamFlip Benham Anti-ChoiceAnti-GayEnd TimesMarriage EqualityReproductive HealthSupreme CourtTue, 23 Aug 2016 20:50:20 +0000Miranda Blue78381 at http://www.pfaw.org